Photo of NYPD Vandal Squad undercover at Adidas’ End to End Project by Trubdizzle.

For the past couple weeks, stories have been going around about a former NYPD vandal squad cop set to release a book on some of New York’s most prolific graffiti writers. This rumor was confirmed when Amazon added the forthcoming book to its website. The book, Vandal Squad by Joseph “Joe Blow” Rivera is expected to be released by Miss Rosen Editions, the “urban culture and lifestyle” imprint of Powerhouse Books, in December 2008.

Recently, Graffnews.com, which has sourced the most information on the book, posted a list of writers who are expected to be named, which include SI, LES, FEES, FACET, PEN, SHINE, DECK, CAP, MENOS, JA, FOE, and SKUF. They also posted an excerpt from Rivera about tracking down MENOS.

After several months we caught a break at a graffiti exhibition in lower Manhattan. I was on the roof of a three-story brownstone with binoculars. It was abeautiful night. Half of them were gathered outside,just hanging out, flipping through their photos, the usual. Then one of the guys pulled out a can of spray paint and tagged the sidewalk. When several spectators moved out of the way I could read the tag: MENOS.

Predictably, some people are pissed off and nervous.